THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I understand the Professor is ready to do that and I thought it would be useful if it were known that that might occur even on Monday.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Then, now, Dr. Fritz, perhaps you will continue with your witness. BY DR. FRITZ:
Q. Witness, yesterday, toward the end of the session, we stopped with the following point dealing with the anti-Semitism expressed by the defendant Fritsche in his radio speeches, and in connection with that point, I have a further question.
According to the statements given by Dr. Goebbels, where were the Jews evacuated to ?
A. Up to the first year of the Russain campaign, Dr. Goebbels in his conferences, over which he presided, repeatedly mentioned the Madagascar plan. Later he changed this and said that a new Jewish state was to be erected in the East, a state to which the Jews were to be taken.
Q. Do you know whether Fritsche, dealing with reports from abroad, dealing with alleged German cruelties and atrocities, not only toward the Jews but toward other peoples as well, whether Fritsche always made inquiries at the TSHA or with other competent authorities or agencies ?
A. Yes. Not only with regard to atrocity reports but all propaganda reports from abroad which were unpleasant to us. He inquired with the officer of Mueller, of the RSHA in Berlin, or sometimes he inquired of the agencies that were directly concerned in these matters.
Q. And what other agencies and offices were there besides the RSHA to which he might have inquired ?
A. First of all, the food office, the Armament Ministry, the OKW it all depended.
Q. Do you know whether in reply to such inquiries a clear and credible denial was given out, or just what results did you achieve ?
A. It was not always a case of denial, not at all. Very frequently we received very clear-cut answers. For example, if it was claimed that there was a strike in Bohemia-Moravia, then the answer was, Yes, in that plant such and such a strike did take place, but always and without exception, a very-clear cut denial came through in all cases of concentration camp atrocities and so forth. Just through this fact, these denials were considered to be absolutely authentic and were given much credence. I should like to emphasize that this was the only possibility we had at our disposal for getting information. These pieces of information were meant, not for the public, but for the Minister, and again and again the answer was No, there is not one word of truth in these reports, and even today I do not know what other way we could have followed for getting information except the one that we did use.
Q. I should-like to interpolate a question here. Can you t estify as to the attitude taken by Fritsche on church questions ?
A. During the war Mr. Fritsche's views coincided with those stated by the Minister. At the beginning of the war, the Minister demanded complete agreement for everything which could have brought about any division of time German people would have been a dividing and disturbing influence. I do not know whether you want me to explain further.
Q. No, I shall turn to another and very important topic. Do you know, witness, what reasons Goebbels gave to his co-workers for the individual military actions taken by Germany ?
A He gave no reasons of his own, ever. He adapted his comments to the reports given out by the Fuehrer.
Fritsche knew in advance that there was a military attack planned, first of all, on Poland, secondly, Belgium and Holland, and, thirdly, Yugoslavia ? and the Corridor was near a decision. Dr. Goebbels Himself, again and again, reassured us, and he himself believed in this, that a war would not result because of this; because, in a completely mistaken view of the attitude of the Western powers, he was convinced that they were only bluffing and that Poland would risk a war without the military support of the Western Powers.
Q How about Belgium and Holland ? Mussolini, had arrived for a visit of state. In the evening there was a stage presentation and afterwards a party was planned for them. During the night I had to call several gentlemen, and in the morning the Minister, in my presence, presented to Mr. Fritsche the two radio broadcasts which were to be transmitted; first, the military reasons were given, and second, the reasons for secret service. Mr. Fritsche didn't even have time to look at these reports, and he had a sore throat and couldn't talk so I had to read the second report, and I myself had not known about this report.
Q How about Yugoslavia ?
A The same thing applies here. In the evening the Minister had dismissed his adjutant; he had given him leave. During the night I had to call these various gentlemen over the phone to get them to assemble, and early in the morning, over the radio, a piece of news was broadcast which up to that period of time had been completely unknown to us.
Q And how about the case of the attack on the Soviet Union ?
A It was even more mad in this case. The Minister, for his own purposes, lied to the chiefs of his departments. In the beginning of May he selected ten out of the ordinary complement of twenty who ordinarily participated in the conferences, and he told these people : " I know that some of you gentlemen think that we are going to fight Russia, and I must tell you today that we are going to fight against England instead, for the invasion is imminent. Please marshal your work accordingly.
You, Dr. Glassmeier, will attend to a new English slogan," and so forth.
This was a pure and simple lie to his own supervisors and leaders of departments. knew of the imminent campaign against Russia ?
A No. In the Propaganda Ministry the following gentlemen knew about the Russian campaign -- and I may say that a letter from Lammers was the key to this whole problem, a letter in which Lammers, in confidence, told the Minister that the Minister intended to make Rosenberg the Eastern Minister. The Minister was to furnish a liaison man, who would be sent from our department to Rosenberg's intended department, and that of course was the key of everything: The people who knew about this were the Minister Kovosky who at that time was the personal expert, Dr. Taubert who was the liaison man who was appointed, I, because by accident I had read this letter, and the leader of the foreign Press, Dr. Boehmer. Dr. Boehmer and this is very important -the day before he was arrested, in the presence of Prince Schamberg Lippert -told me that he received the knowledge of this from Rosenberg's circle. I should like to emphasize that he did not have the information from the personnel of our Ministry. As leader on a parallel to Quitmann, both department chiefs, in ordinary ways, would have been advised. Boehmer did not know this from the Minister; therefore, Fritsche could not have known it in that way either. On the next day, because of this remark which he had made, he was arrested and later on he was killed in action. ing : Did you notice at any time that before important political or military actions were taken by the government or the Party Goebbels used to exchange plans with Defendant Fritsche ?
A That is completely out of the question. That would have been in complete contradiction to the principles adhered to by the Minister. Not only did he not exchange questions of plans but neither did he inform anyone.
Q Now we shall turn to a different pattern of questions. The Prosecution is accusing Defendant Fritsche of the fact that he had influenced the German people along the lines of a master race idea and, along the same line, he incited hate against the peoples of other countries. Did Fritsche at any time ever receive instructions to conduct a propaganda campaign along the lines of a master race theory ?
A Not at all, no. In this connection, you must know that Dr. Goebbels, together with the party dogmatism and might, those were things that Dr.Goebbels couldn't work; those were not things with which you could use methods.
To him the Party was the large reservoir in which many different currents of the people should be united, and this idea of the master race, perhaps because of his own physical defect, he talked about this theory and he rejected it completely. That was nothing with which Dr. Goebbels wanted to concern himself; he couldn't use it. Shall I turn to the question of hate ? You asked me about that also. A propaganda of hate against other peoples would have been quite contrary to the propaganda lines as set out by Dr. Goebbels, for he hoped, and following that hope to the end, that one day he could change from the policy of "against England" and "against America" to the policy of "with England" and "with America". And if you want to do that, or anything like that you can not use hate against these people. He wanted to travel and go with these peoples rather than against them.
Q Against whom was this propaganda to fight ? What was this propaganda to combat ?
A First of all, against systems, for, as Dr. Goebbels made the concept "plutocracy" to be that which the whole world knows today, later on the concept of "Bolsehvism" was taken in from the other side, and in time this policy was directed against some of the men in power; But in that case he couldn't quite see eye to eye with the German Press and had trouble. He was quite indignant about that and in one conference he said : "Gentlemen, if I could put ten Jews in your place, they really would to the job." But later, he deviated from this pattern of attacking personalities such as Churchill. Because of his own counter-propaganda he became very much afraid that these men would become too popular as a result of being attacked by him and, apart from that, he personally didn't even hate Churchill. On the sly, he actually admired him. For example, during the entire war he had a picture of the Duke of Windsor on his desk. During this peiod of time he had a hate against individual men and always a complete hate against systems. very clearly, and above all, remember your oath. Tell me the aim of this propaganda for which Fritsche received instructions and carried through ? Was it to create and arouse unbridled passions which could be parralel to incitement to murder, or what was their purpose ?
A No. The arousing of passions was something that the Minister couldn't use at all in this propaganda, for passions rise and die down again. What the Minister did need was a steady and constant lying, on a constant level, with perseverence even in hard times. He wanted no whipping up to hate and murder; that would have been something that was quite against the German people and neither was it anything that Dr. Goebbels could use. direction of the Propaganda Ministry ?
A. I have to differentiate and discriminate. I do not know whether I should enter into the divergence between Dr. Goebbels and Ribbentrop, for at the beginning the Foreign Office had demanded that the entire propaganda broadcast include specifically propaganda in foreign countries, propaganda of the radio broadcast to foreign countries and propaganda of the foreigners living in Germany -- propaganda directed toward those people -- and that all of these propaganda instruments be unified in his person and in his hands. There were pretty disagreeable differences. Both parties in the long run exploited this divergence for their own purposes.
Q. Witness, please be a little more brief.
A. I can leave this topic, for the difference between these two men is well known. However, I must turn to Russia. In Russia, press and propaganda up to about March of 1944 were subordinate to Mr. Rosenberg. And in this sphere as well, Dr. Goebbels -
THE PRESIDENT: What has this Russian propaganda got to do with the defendant ?
DR. FRITZ: No; the German propaganda in Russian territory, Mr. President was what I wanted to know, and I wanted him to answer with just one sentence or two. He has already said most of it.
THE WITNESS: Up until 1944, Rosenberg -- and that was much to the worry of Dr. Goebbels -- believed that the Russian campaign could have gone on witho propaganda. BY DR. FRITZ:
Q. I have one more question that I should like to put to you. Yesterday, when Dr. Fritzsche was on cross-examination, the prosecution presented several interrogation minutes of General Field Marshal Schoener, for instance records in which the testimony is unanimous to the effect that Fritzsche was the permanent deputy of Goebbels as propaganda minister. Is that correct ?
A. That is nonsense pure and simple; and I cannot see how a statement like that could be made. It is just not true.
DR. FRITZ: Thank you very much. Mr. President, I have no further questions to put to the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any of the other defendants' counsel want to ask any questions to the Witness ?
(No response)
THE PRESIDENT: Does the prosecution wish to cross-examine ?
GENERAL RUDENKO: Mr. President, the prosecution does not intend to question this witness, but this does not mean that we accept without objection the testimony which has been given here.
THE PRESIDENT: The Witness may retire.
DR. FRITZ: Mr. President, I should like to point this out further, and to request that the High Tribunal take judicial notice even of those documents which I do not quote, dealing with both my document books.
In my document book No. 2 you will find another affidavit deposed by Dr. Scharping, a document which I should like to submit to the High Tribunal as Fritzsche Exhibit No. 3, pages 16 to 19. This affidavit deals with the demeanor of the Defendant Fritzsche and the attitude he took against measures which Hitler had planned following the large-scale air attacks on the city of Dresder. I should like to ask the High Tribunal to take judicial notice of the contents of this affidavit, page 16 and those following, Document Book No. 2.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Fritz, the Tribunal observes that in Exhibit 3 which you have just presented to us, there is a statement by the person making the affidavit that after the bombing of German cities in the fall of 1944, "Dr. Goebbels stated that there was no longer any objection to handing over crew members of the crashed airplanes to the wrath of the people". ness-box and to question him about that. this matter in your examination of him ?
DR. FRITZ: No. Mr. President, I hoped, and I wanted to say this at the conclusion of my case, that I expected a statement from Feltscher at Berlin. He is in custody up there, but I have not received any reply from him. And I should like to ask to be permitted to submit that when it does arrive.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that another interrogatory or affidavit that you mean?
DR. FRITZ: Yes; it is a statement which deals with the same topic.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
DR. FRITZ: And if I may be permitted to add this at this point, Mr. President. I also expected to have a statement from the British radio commentator Clifton Delmar, which, however, has not arrived up until this minute. May I submit that ?
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly, you may. But what the Tribunal is concerned with at the moment is that they think it material that they should know -
DR. FRITZ: Yes, I quite understand, Mr. President.
HANS FRITZSCHE, a witness, was recalled and testified further as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. You are still under oath; you may sit down.
You have read this affidavit ?
A. I cannot remember it.
Q. We did not hear the answer to that.
A. I do not recall this affidavit which was just submitted by my counsel to the High Tribunal. I know that it exists, however.
Q. The statement that the Tribunal wished you to be asked about was this:
"Beginning in the fall of 1944, Dr. Goebbels also spoke about this frequently during his so-called "Conferences of Ministers" ..."
I want to begin before that :
"The increasing effect of English and American air bombardments on German cities caused Hitler and his more intimate advisors to seek drastic measures of reprisal. Beginning in the fall of 1944, Dr. Goebbels also spoke about this frequently during his so-called "Conferences of Ministers", to which numerous officials and technicians of his Ministry were convened and which, as a rule, I also attended." -- that is, Franz Scharping.
A. Yes.
Q. "On such occasions Dr. Goebbels stated that there was no longer any objection to handing over crew members of crashed planes to the wrath of the people". this Tribunal. Did yon in your propaganda speeches make any references to this subject ?
A. No, never in my propaganda speeches did I ask that the crew members of aircraft which had been shot down be killed. On the other hand, I know that Dr. Goebbels, for reasons of intimidation, or to serve the purpose of intimidation, already in the fall of 1944 had reports sent abroad, just to quote one example, to the effect that an Anglo-Saxon airplane which on Sunday had shot at the people who were on their way to church had been shot down later and that the members of the crew had been lynched by the mob. dly be behind this report, for it is quite improbable that an airplane would be shot down at such a moment.
Dr. Goebbels, as is known, through a circular letter addressed to the Gau Propaganda Offices, asked that reports about such incidents, in case they actually did take place, should be transmitted to him. But to my knowledge he did not receive any factual reports to this effect. That was the period of time in which he wrote an article in the Reich about this subject. But I am sorry, I cannot give you the title of this article at this moment. In any event, this campaign increased and was intensified after, perhaps, January or February, and had died down in the days before the air attack on Dresden. But this campaign intensified itself on the occasion of this incident.
Dr. Goebbels declared in the 11 o'clock conference which has been mentioned quite frequently in this courtroom that in Dresden we were mourning 40.000 killed. At that time it was not known that the actual figure was an essentially higher one. Dr. Goebbels added to this report that there would have to be an end put to this terror in one way or another, and he said that Hitler had arrived at the firm conclusion that the same number of English, American and Russian flyers would be shot in Dresden, with the number to correspond to the number of inhabitants of Dresden who had lost their lives in this air attack. There was an incident that occurred : I jumped up and refused to do this.
Dr. Goebbels broke off the conference. He asked me to come into his room, and there was quite a heated discussion between us.
Towards the end of this discussion I persuaded him at least 29 June M LJG 6-1 to the point where he promised me that he would try to use his influence with Hitler himself so that this plan would not be carried through.
In connection with that I spoke to Ambassador Ruehle, the liaison man of the Foreign Office. I asked Ruehle to approach his minister along those same lines and to got him to do something as well. I then spoke to State Secretary Naumann and put a request to him along the same lines, to use his influence with Bormann, whose predominant influence was well known. this was not permitted to me but, nevertheless, I had a discussion with the Protective P ower representative. I told him about this in confidence and hinted, in a certain way, about the plans that I had heard about. I asked him whether he could suggest anything or furnish me with an argument or with an instrument so that I could fight against this plan more effectively and more intensively. He stated that he would attend to this matter with dispatch. He called no the next morning and we had a second discussion. On that occasion he told me that in the meantime he had had prospects of having prisoners exchanged prise, I believe, 50,000 men. customary diplomatic channels, but to permit me to discuss the possibility of a prisoner of war exchange with Dr. Goebbels, Naumann, and Bormann. I did so, and just at that period of time the leadership was especially interested in having prisoners of war returned to their home countries so that they could once more take their place as soldiers. prisoners was going to affect the question of whether 40,000 English and American and Russian fliers would be killed as a reprisal?
A The following seemed to appear to me. At the time when we had a chance to bring about an exchange of prisoners of 29 Juno M LJG 6-2 war between two belligerents, an action which was beyond thoughts of humanity and beyond law had to be replaced by this.
At that moment when we talked about an exchange of prisoners of war, the thought of a gigantic program of shooting of prisoners would have to be crowded out of the picture and would have to be pushed into the background.
I can conclude briefly. I told Dr. Goebbels about it. This plan was discussed in the evening with Hitler, and I had two reports from the different sources. Both of those reports coincided. An unusual circumstance was that this offer was sent through in the usual bureaucratic way some days after this strange incident had occurred. BY THE TRIBUNAL (Judge Biddle) :
Q When did you hear about Hitler's order, not with respect to these prisoners, but with respect to the fliers who had landed? When did you first hear of that? abroad with respect to that order. Did you know about it then?
Q You know about that order in the autumn of 1944?
Q When did you know about it?
A I cannot tell you exactly, but in the autumn of 1944? I did not know this order. S ince I am under oath I have to be extremely careful. I believe I only heard about this order here in this courtroom. However, there is a little confusion in my memory; I seem to be confused about the campaign of Dr. Goebbels which I have just described. February when they were discussing the killing of 40,000 prisoners, was it not? prisoners killed, did you?
A Of course, at that moment at which Dr. Goebbels was 29 June M LJG 6-3 relating this I believed that Hitler planned to carry it through.
Q Then the answer is "yes". you?
A The 40,000 men?
A Generally speaking?
Q And what other of the leaders wished them killed? It was apparently discussed a good goal; who else in the government was in favor of this policy?
A I cannot say that with assurance. The only other person who would be concerned here would be Bormann. However, I do know to the contrary, which was an attempt to persuade Hitler differently, made by Ruehle and by the then Foreign Minister Ribbentrop. He worked along these lines. killing the prisoners? I am not clear on that. Did Ribbentrop know about it? At that time I instructed Ambassador Ruehle about it, and I asked him to try to mobilize Ribbentrop. Thereafter, a day or two later, Ruehle started--we were telephoning back and forth and we were quite excited-
Q I don't need the details. The answer is that the Foreign Office know, even if Ribbentrop personally may not have known. Is that right?
Q Do you know hwat attitude Bormann took in this matter?
this plan of Hitler's to shoot those 40,900, but afterwards, 29 June M LJG 6-4 under the influence of Goebbels and Naumann he took the opposite view and worked with the thought of dissuading Hi tier from this plan.
of the Wehrmacht?
Q It is suggested that I should also ask you this. Do you knew what attitude Ribbentrop took on the shooting of those prisoners?
A Yes. After the report by Ambassador Ruehle he was in favor of preventing this shooting plan, and he tried to use his influence. However, I don't know how he tried to use his influence.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Fritz, do you wish to ask the defendant any questions?
DR. FRITZ: No, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Do the prosecution wish to ask any questions arising out of the questions that the Tribunal has asked?
GENERAL RUDENKO: No, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Then the defendant can return to the deck.
DR. FRITZ: Mr. President, this brings me to the conclusion of the presentation of evidence in the case of the defendant Fritsche.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you offering in evidence all of the documents in your two document bocks, each one of them?
DR. FRITZ: Yes indeed, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Are they marked with exhibit numbers?
DR. FRITZ: Yes they are. I have the originals at my disposal, and I have submitted them.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
Haven't you get two exhibits 1, exhibit 1 in one book and exhibit 1 in the other book?
DR. FRITZ: No, Mr. President. Do you mean document book 1, 29 June M LJG 6-5 Mr. President?
There are no Fritsche exhibits contained in document book 1.
THE PRESIDENT: Very we'll. That concludes the case of Fritsche?
DR. FRITZ: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.
(A recess was taken.)
DR. BERGOLD: Dr. Bergold, for the defendant Martin Bormann. To the High Tribunal, first of all I wish to state that I do not wish the witness Dr. Kloepfer either since he has often closely cooperated with Bormann since 1942 and since therefore most of the documents on which the Indictment is based, cannot be referred to by him. Apart from that, he only ran the legislative department in the Party Chancellery. To the High Tribunal, to begin with I shall have to make one very brief principal remark. The defendant Bormann is absent. His associates, generally speaking,are not at my disposal either. For that reason, all I can do is try and submit some evidence on the strength of the documents submitted by the prosecution, bringing us to the conclusion that the defendant didn't play that legendary part which is now attributed to him, after the collapse. I, as a lawyer, dislike making something out of nothing and therefore I can only say very very little and I beg the High Tribunal to take notice of this. It isn't negligence on my part but it is the inability to do any better on the strength of the documents and without the assistance of the defendant. can be carried through and I had offered evidence to show that with the greatest probability, the defendant Bormann died on the 1st of May 1945, on the occasion of an attempted escape from the Reich Chancellery. As my first woman witness for this, I had named witness Else Krueger, which had been passed by the Tribunal. In my application of the 26th of June, I have stated that I should forego examining this witness if the High Tribunal would permit me to submit an affidavit instead of the examination and I have not yet received an answer to that application; but, I presume that, as I had heard from Dr. Kempner that prosecution were agreeable to this, that the High Tribunal wouldn't raise any objection to this either.
THE PRESIDENT: I thought the application was withdrawn with reference to the witness Krueger.
DR. BERGOLD: No. I have stated that I should forfeit having the witness provided I could submit an affidavit. There appears to be a misunderstanding here. The prosecution have just informed me that they would agree to this.
MR. DODD: We have said we had no objection, Mr. President, to the use of the affidavit since he was waiving the calling of the witness.
DR. BERGOLD: In that case, I shall submit the affidavit under Bormann No. 12 to the High Tribunal. Then, I have three further witnesses who should testify that Bormann had died; first of all, witness Kempka who for many years had been Hitler's chauffeur, who was present when this escape attempt from the Reich Chancellery failed and that witness is not available. According to information which I have, he was interned at the camp at Freising in December 1945, in the hands of the American authorities, but unfortunately he has not yet been produced. I had also named witness Rattenhuber who was also present when Bormann died and according to the information which I have, he is supposed to be in the hands of the USSR. The woman witness, Christian, who had been granted me, could not be located. To begin with, she had been in the camp at Oberursel where she was interned and from there she was given leave and she used this leave to vanish. Apart from the affidavit of the witness Krueger, therefore, I have no proof for my allegation. I regret this very much indeed that I cannot clearly prove my point and I also regret that the high members of the prosecution haven't been able to support me any more because this will support the forming of legends very much indeed. There is a sort of falsified Demitrios or a "forged" Martin Bormann who are reporting to me, who are sending reports to me; and I thought it would be a service to the entire public, the German nation and the Allies if I be in a position to furnish the proof for which I had asked; and now I shall turn to my documents.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to hear this affidavit of Krueger read.
DR. BERGOLD: Yes. Very well, Mr. President. "Miss Else Krueger, born 9 February 1915, at Hamburg, Altona; secretary; at present living at Hamburg -- in Mansenweg 1. Approximately since the end of 1924, I have been one of several secretaries (approximately thirty to forty of them); figures and names cannot be accurately s tated any longer. Secretary of the defendant Martin Bormann until the end and even after Hitler's death, I occupied that position. On the 1st of May 1945, I saw Bormann in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery for the last time and talked to him for the last time but at that point I was no longer working for him since at that point hewas writing his own orders and wireless messages by hand.
At that time in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery, all I had to do was prepare myself, within me, for my death. The last words he spoke to me, he spoke during an accidental meeting in the bunker and they were: 'Well, then, farewell. There isn't much sense in it now but I will try but very probably I shall not get through,' These, in their sense, were his last words. The exact words I can no longer recollect.
"Later, in the course of the evening when the Russians had gotten very near to the center ofthe Reich Chancellery -- at least that is what I was convinced of at the time -- I, together with a group of about 200 people, mostly soldiers, left the shelter through a subterranean exit near the Chancellery, and we reached the underground entrance to the Kaiserhof.
From there, we used subterranean passages and escaped into Friedrichstrasse. The further escape went through a number of streets, debris of houses, and I can no longer remember the exact details today because of the excitement of the situation.
"Eventually, in the course of the following morning, we reached some shelter or other, the location of which I cannot tell you any more. It might have been the shelter at Humboldthain."
THE PRESIDENT: DR. Bergold, doesn't the affidavit deal with the defendant Bormann at all.
DR. BERGOLD: Oh yes, yes, we are coming to that.
"There, after some time, SS Gruppenfuehrer Rattenhuber appeared quite suddenly. He had been wounded in the leg and was brought in on a camp bed. When other people made inquiries as to where he was coming from, he stated in my presence that he, together with Bormann and others, had left by car and gone through the Friedrichstrasse. Presumably everybody was dead; there had been masses of bodies.
"I gathered from his statement that he believed Bormann dead. This appeared probable to me because, according to stories which I heard from soldiers whom I didn't know, all those people who had left the shelter after us had been under strong Russian fire and there were supposedly hundreds of dead."
"Later, as far as I can recollect, I read in a British paper that Hitler's driver oflong standing, by the name of Kempka, is supposed to have made a statement somewhere according to which Bormann, withwhom, apparently, he fled, was dead."
That is all I have been able to find, Mr. President, and the real witness unfortunately hasn't been found.
I shall now come to the documents. In order to abbreviate my evidence, may I take the liberty of referring to the document book which I am presenting.
We are exclusively concerned with instructions from Bormann which have appeared in the collection of orders from theDeputy of the Fuehrer.
I beg the Tribunal to take judicial notice of these official instructions issued by Bormann andthe legal consequences arising from these documents I shall bring up during my final speech. I should merely like to refer to 2326, from which I should like to quote one sentence. It is under Figure 8. It is No. 8 in my document book, Mr. President. I should like to draw your attention to it without quoting from it. the Prosecution, and I shall turn to Document 098-PS, from which I shall quote on page 4, the second paragraph at the top. I shall quote a brief passage.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you say 098-PS?
Dr. BERGOLD: Yes, 098-PS, Bormann's letter dated the 22nd of February 1940, and addressed to Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg.
THE PRESIDENT: Page 4?
DR. BERGOLD: Page 4, Mr. President. It is the letter in which Bormann uses violent terms against the question of religion. He writes on page 4 as follows:
"With regard to religious instruction in schools it seems to me that nothing need be changed with regard to the prevailing conditions. No National Socialist teacher, according to the clear-cut instructions from the Deputy of the Fuehrer, must be accused in any way if he is prepared to teach religion in schools."
I skip one sentence and I continue:
"In the circular of the Deputy of the Fuehrer dated 3-39, it is expressly stated that teachers instructed to teach religion should by no means make their own choice of material for religious teaching from the Bible, but they are instructed to teach the entire biblical material. Any misinterpretations or separations in the sense of repeated attempts which have been made by individual churches, and that means the German Christians, must not be made." of the Prosecution. It is Instruction 104-38, and I quote: